Sacramento County Public Defender puts King Hall students to work over summer

To provide more work-experience opportunities for UC Davis Law students, the Sacramento County Public Defender’s office created a remote, six-week intensive legal education course this past summer.

Emily Bills '21, Alejandra Gutierrez '21, Dustin Hutton '22, Joey Loiacono '21, Christine Long ‘21, Jordan McKee '21, Jackie Reynders '21, Rachel Schroeder '22, Courtney Schwyzer '22 and Mikaila Skaroff '22 all participated. King Hall alums Christian Rowland and Nichelle Walker, from the class of 2019, also worked for the Public Defender’s office this summer.

The six-week program covered 36 topics and involved an hour of daily Zoom instruction with different attorneys specializing in different areas of law; a Google classroom platform with daily assignments; a virtual mock trial competition with other public defender offices; individual assignments within various Sacramento County Public Defender units; and a weekly remote game night for socializing.

Students were assigned to one of the following units:  Misdemeanor Intake, Pre-Trial Services, Expungements, Research, Homicides, Felony Intake, and Juvenile Hall.  In these assignments, they worked up cases, interviewed clients, investigated cases, researched legal issues, appeared on the record, developed new programs, wrote motions, and litigated in court.